


Out of Service

by Gaia_bing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Established Relationship, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Romance, Sad with a Happy Ending, Supernatural Elements, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16010831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: The story of an old and broken elevator,The tale of a love than met a tragic end,And the telling of the way one Natasha Romanov hoped to remedy all of this,On a cold Halloween night...





	1. The elevator

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah...another new mini-story by me! :)
> 
> But with me in the middle of school and work, I'm not 100% sure when I'll be able to work on this. Still, I'll try to get it done by my self-imposed due-date, which is Halloween. :)
> 
> ETA: Another brought right up for its intended Holiday. :)

It was in the first week of October of that year, therefore in the second week that one Natasha Romanov had officially become a tenant of the almost centennial building that the red-head first noticed it.

  
It was on a Thursday night, she'd just spent the whole afternoon doing some catch-up deco shopping for her still not-fully-furnished apartment, so let's just say that when she staggered her way into the building's lobby, she was almost at her neck with bags and packages of different sizes and weights.

  
She made a sound that was in the middle of a groan and a sigh when she turned her head to her left and saw her most difficult challenge yet:

  
The flights of stairs that she'd have to go through to get to her front door and freedom for her poor numb arms and poor sore feet.

  
It was moments like this one that made her wonder why in the hell she made the kind of decisions that she often did.

  
She sighed once more as she pushed her head away from the hallway wall. She recitated in her brain the list of reasons as to why she'd decided to get this particular place in downtown Brooklyn rather than any other ones:

  
\- It was only a block from her work,

  
\- It was cheap as hell,

  
\- She loved the look and the feel of a place full of history,

  
\- She... _she_...

  
Nastasha sadly looked once again to her left and mumbled to herself:

  
_"What would I give for a freakin' elevator right now..."_

  
Suddenly, as if the Heavens themselves heard her request, a flicker caught the red-head's attention. Turning her head to her right, she noticed that it was an old-looking neon light that was doing all this brouhaha, as it went on and off and on and off...

  
Right above an elevator.

 

Natasha was about to fall on her knees and weep in thanks to any available gods she was so happy.

  
_Finally!_ A reprieve! She wouldn't have to climb six story worth of stairs while balancing seven-shops-worth of items after all! What would have probably taken over an half-hour to do would probably take five to six minutes at most!

  
All she had to now was take a couple of steps, push on the elevator button and...

  
_And..._

  
**_And..._ **

  
Natasha once again thumped her head against a hard surface in frustration, but this time it was on the wall just besides the elevator door.

  
She should have known that all of this was just too good to be true.

  
Of course the elevator had no outside buttons.

  
_Of course_ it was one of those old manual ones, one that needed a second person to operate it.

  
_Of course_ there was big sign that read: **"Out of service"** right above it.

  
"Of course, of course, of course!" she cried to herself repeatedly, banging her forehead again and again and again and again...

  
_"Oh, my! You're going to give yourself quite the ache if you keep doing that, you know."_   an elderly voice suddenly called out right from behind Natasha and almost made her jump right out of her skin.

  
Quickly turning around, she heaved a breath of relief when she realized who'd been talking to her:

  
Mrs. Whiterbee, the owner of this whole place, a chatty but also very nice old woman.

  
"I'm sorry, 'mam." the red-head started. She quickly stood back up and off of the rough-feeling wall. "I just got caught up in a moment and I just..."

  
"-Realized that you were going have to get your athleticism on to get home after all?" the white-haired woman finished for her, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

  
"Y-y-yeah." Natasha answered, looking down at the carpeted floor in a bit of shame of having been intercepted acting like a spoiled brat.

  
A reassuring hand on one of her busy arms made her look up.

  
"Don't worry about it your display, my child. I've had a lot of tenants in my time here and they've pretty much have all had the same kind of reaction when they saw what you've just seen, sometime more and sometime less showboaty than yours was of course." the elderly woman said and, looking at her interlocutor's predicament, offered with a smile:

  
"Say, before you lunge yourself feet first into your next cement-build adventure, why don't you take some time and accompany me for some tea and some rest over at my place? I could tell you the story as to why there's been an out of order sign on that elevator for the past three-quarters of a century..."

 

 

 


	2. The story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Whiterbee begins her story...

Natasha sighed a relieved puff of air as her back came up against the sweet, sweet feeling of padded leather, giving her poor back and her poor legs a much-needed break. She smiled when she saw her hostess of the hour arrive in the small living-room with her promised Early Grey sat, down inside her own leather chair and began to tell her story:

"'Way before I decided to call this building my bread and butter, lived on the fifth floor of this place two fiery and bright young men.

  
The oldest and the tallest of the two was named James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone called him Bucky. The smallest and youngest one was named Steve Grant Rogers and well, this one didn't have any particular nickname, but his best friend liked to call him Stevie, so that stuck.

  
Oh yes, I've heard many stories about these two from people that knew them, more specifically about how rowdy they were, especially Steve. 'Always getting into fights against things he didn't believe was right while Bucky was always standing there, always by his back or on his left to help him along and defend him when things began to go awry.

  
They'd been like this since very early childhood and grown only closer when poor Sarah Rogers passed way before her time and left her only child all alone in the world. That was when Bucky decided to leave his own family home and with the little bit of money he and Steve had and were gathering from different jobs, moved out here when they were about to hit their adulthood.

  
And that's when their friendship turned well...into love."

  
Natasha leaned into her chair a bit, getting intrigued. "They were _lovers_?" she asked before taking a sip of her tea.

  
Mrs. Witherbee smiled wider as she reached underneath the small coffee tale where she'd just deposited her own cup and took out what looked like to be a family album.

  
She continued: "Oh, yes and back in that day this kind of thing wasn't looked upon with such a positive light as it would be nowadays. So they kept this development between the two of them, but everyone around here knew what the status of their relationship really was and really, just look at them!"

  
And lo and behold, stood into the picture that her hostess was showing her right this second a young blond-haired man right alongside a brown-haired one. Arms around the other, eyes only between the two of them, the pure definition of love had been photographed right there and then.

  
"Yes, they only told their secrets to the ones closest to them: sisters, mother, even the priest that was supposed to marry them..."

  
The redhead almost choked out her drink: _"Married?!"_

  
Mrs. Whiterbee's nodded: "Yes, just about two years after they both reached maturity. Since society didn't want them as a couple, they'd defy it just like they'd always defy everything else. They'd made plans and everything, but..."

  
"But _what_?" Natasha inquired.

  
The elderly woman's face turned a bit somber: "Reality happened. The Second Great War. Bucky was enlisted and had to go serve his country, while poor Steve had to stay here, too fragile and too weak to do what he really wanted to do: beat up the bad guys and be besides his beloved."

  
Turning a page from her album, she pointed at another picture: one of Steve sitting all alone on a bench, looking a little bit older, but also a little bit sadder.

  
"And so Steve stayed on this side of the world, worrying like every awaiting significant others while their other halves were busy defending their freedom. It went on like this for over three years and it would have stayed like this until after the war was declared over, if it wouldn't have been for this." Mrs. Whiterbee went on as she turned once again a page of her album.

  
Natasha read the large headline of the yellowed newspaper clipping : **"Survivors of Azzano Battle released from hospital, will be coming States Side in the coming weeks."**

  
"Bucky was one of the men caught in the battle of Azzano, somewhere in Italy and was badly injured. 'Apparently got one arm blown right off his body. Oh, it must have quite the gruesome sight, I tell you!" the other woman exclaimed, making the younger one of the pair slightly chuckle.

  
Natasha took another sip of her Early Gray as she asked: "And then what happened?"

  
"Well, Steve received a telegram from Bucky himself, telling him of this news and that he would be coming home and that finally, _finally_ , the plans that they'd both held on for so long would finally be coming true, and just the thought of that made Steve seemingly light up from the inside."

  
Another picture proved Mrs. Whiterbee's point, as an even older-looking Steve was smiling right back at Natasha, as if a flame had been revived from the inside of his soul and was lighting the back of his eyes.

  
And the redhead was about to express this particular sentiment, if Mrs. Whiterbee hadn't quickly added right there and then:

  
"And that's the last picture of one Steve Grant Rogers that's ever been taken. Well at least, while he was alive. And no pictures of one James Buchanan Barnes was ever taken again."

  
Natasha sat back in her seat, slightly perplexed:

  
"What happened?"

  
Mrs. Whiterbee simply turned the page, the last one of her album and the answer stared up right into the redhead's face as she read aloud...

  
**"Tragedy inside Brooklyn building kills two on Halloween night."**


	3. The tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story continues...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah...bonus chapter! Or maybe it is one chapter split into two parts? Anyways, have at it! :D

It was a pretty cold night, this particular Halloweeny one. At least, that's what people that recounts this story have said.

  
As it was tradition over the last couple of years, a festive costumed party was held inside the six-story building.

  
Everyone that lived there had been invited and every tenant was there.

  
At least, _mostly_ everyone.

  
Steve Rogers wasn't at the festivities that was being held in the lobby. He was cooped up at home, dealing with a very rough pneumonia he'd yet again caught thanks to his very fragile immunity system, the very reason he wasn't at his dear Bucky's side at that very moment.

  
But still, despite coughing up a storm and having the aches of a lifetime, he was still happy as can be because in his hands he was holding the one thing that was sending him heat throughout his whole being: a message full of promises of love, of finality and of preempted commitments finally being realized after so long.

  
Yes, when the next morning came, Bucky would finally be home and he and his beloved would finally be wed.

Yes, this is what he thought, as another wave of coughs sent him doubling over and shivering, his previously clean clothed-tissue now stained crimson red.

  
If he could last this long, Steve worriedly thought to himself, as he discovered right there and then that the sickness he'd had so many times in the past and believed was under control, had in fact done some extensive damage to his already-weak body,  
Damage he hadn't encountered in his twenty-five years of life...

  
*************

  
Bucky Barnes stood outside the building, grinning from ear-to-ear.

  
This would be the perfect surprise.

  
Yes, he'd intended to arrive back in the Unites States by the next day, just like he'd promised his Stevie, but after some pleading to his higher-ups and some nice puppy-dog eyes to his nurses, he'd been granted a quiet early release and he'd happily hopped on an Italian plane a couple hours beforehand and now here he was, where he belonged, with a home waiting for him inside a pair of dearly-missed arms and a wedded journey to finally embark on just before midnight came.

  
Yes, Bucky would arrive incognito to Steve's door, give him the surprise and the embrace of a lifetime and, like a thief in the night, he would whisk away the love of his life to his planned nightly rendez-vous, the local church, where the priest that had been chosen to marry them all those years ago would finally do the long-awaited deed and heck, even if they couldn't be husbands to the eyes of the world, they'd least would be inside their own.

  
Yes, this is what Bucky thought as he opened the door with his unfortunately one and only still-there hand...

  
And found himself face-to-face with a horde of drunken partyers.

  
*************

Steve got out of the apartment, another wave of coughs wrecking his entire body.

  
Gosh, if he'd thought the inside of his apartment was cold because of those damn unpaid heating bills, the hallways in this place were absolutely glacial at night.

  
He rubbed his hands together and put one over his forehead...

  
Was he also running a fever on top of everything else?

  
He hoped he wouldn't have to go to the hospital, since if he did, he wouldn't be there for Bucky's return. And if there was one thing he didn't wanna do, it was making his beloved worry about his well-being the first minute he was back home.

  
Maybe the owner downstairs still had some of that strong cough medicine, he thought as he wrapped his arms around his shivering self.

  
The medication would probably keep him away from the emergencies long enough so that Bucky would get a proper welcome back...

  
If he could find the damn elevator to get to said-downstairs first, that is.

  
*************

  
_"'Scuse me! Pardon me! Excuse me!"_   Bucky called out as he tried to squish himself a passage through the lobby and make his way inside the building.

  
Dear lord, just how many tenants did this place contain? And since when did they held drunken parties in the lobby on Halloween night? Was this a tradition that had began while he was gone or something?!

  
Nonetheless, he had an apartment to go back to and a Stevie to run away with....

  
If he could find the damn elevator to get to said-upstairs first, that is.

  
************

  
Bucky's fidgeting only got worse when he finally found the machine and...

  
Where the _hell_ was the **damn** operator of this thing?

  
************

  
Steve's shivering only got worse when he finally found the machine and...

  
Where the _hell_ was the **damn** operator of this thing?

  
************

  
"Where the _hell_ was the **damn** operator of that thing?" asked Natasha, reading the last few lines of the newspaper clipping Mrs. Whiterbee had shown her.

  
The elderly woman could only shrug her shoulders as she explained: "'Drunk off his tuckus just like the rest of this place. There was no one to get anyone up and down in a quick way, so..."

  
Natasha looked down at the tiled floor before her, a frown now on her face as she recounted what she'd just read...

  
A brown-haired man cleverly picking away at the locked gate of the elevator, too eager to get to his beloved to take the stairs...

  
Not a professional, he'd tried as best as he could to make it work and was just about halfway to his destination...

  
When a sudden crashing sound brought the lobby party to a halt, leaving them all absolutely shaken to the core when the elevator door finally reopened...

  
And...

  
The sight before them too ugly to describe, even to the inspectors when morning finally came and the body that had been found there had been placed on a gurney.

  
And their shock only deepened when another gurney was brought down the stairs and on it laid little Stevie Rogers, having been found, cold as ice to the touch, his weak heart and lungs finally getting the best of him, holding between his hands a telegram that promised him a brand new life...

  
A brand new life that unfortunately had been extinguished right next to the machine that had also taken his pal's...

  
His buddy's...

  
His _Bucky's_ .

 

Mrs. Whiterbee pointed at her door as she said: "And do you want to know why the elevator has been out of service ever since?"

  
Following the elderly woman out of her apartment and back down the hallway, that's when Natasha noticed something she hadn't seen when she first came into contact with the machine....

  
**Rot**.

 

The whole shaft that the elevator was supposed to be in was rotten. As were the walls right next it.

  
"And this whole streak that looks like somebody forgot a giant apple for over a century and then smushed it all over the walls goes all the way up to where Steve Rogers was found, I might add. The owner before me and myself tried everything to get this thing off and the elevator working again, but nothing has worked.

And by the time the fifth guy that I employed suffered third-degree burns when he tried to take the whole wall down and electrocuted himself, even though there hasn't been a single ounce of electricity inside that passage for over seventy-five years, I just about gave up and let the whole issue, including the sign that they ended up putting on the damn thing, stay as it was.

  
I say, if Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes wanna let their souls and this whole place rot away because they couldn't get to one another, then I say let them be." Mrs. Whiterbee finished, shrugging her shoulders once more in surrender in face of the situation.

  
But if there was one thing Natasha Romanov was really,  _really_ bad at, it was at surrendering.

 

And, even thought this whole thing was little bit out of field inside her beliefs,

  
She knew she had to do s _omething_ to help...

  
Whether it was Mrs. Whiterbee,

  
Whether it was the building itself,

  
Or, even perhaps...

 

Help the two lost souls that were literally rotting away right in front of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As how this story switched to Bucky and Steve's POV when there was no one that recounted it to anyone else? There's a reason why they're there...
> 
> You'll see...:)


	4. The operator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can exactly *can* you do to repair a problem from the past that refuses to move on? Well, Natasha finds a way...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, final chapter! Thanks everyone who like this story in the on little way, it really meant the world to me. :)

Bucky Barnes stood outside the building, smiling ear-to-ear.

  
This would be the perfect surprise.

  
Yes, he'd intended to arrive back in the Unites States by the next day, just like he'd promised his Stevie, but after some pleading to his higher-ups and some nice puppy-dog eyes to his nurses, he'd been granted a quiet early release and he'd happily hopped on an Italian plane a couple hours beforehand and now here he was, where he belonged, with a home waiting for him inside a pair of dearly-missed arms and a wedded journey to finally embark on just before midnight came.

  
Yes, Bucky would arrive incognito to Steve's door, give him the surprise and the embrace of a lifetime and, like a thief in the night, he would whisk away the love of his life to his planned nightly rendez-vous, the local church, where the priest that had been chosen to marry them all those years ago would finally do the long-awaited deed and heck, even if they couldn't be husbands to the eyes of the world, they'd least would be inside their own.

  
Yes, this is what Bucky thought as he opened the door with his unfortunately one and only still-there hand...

  
And found himself face-to-face with an empty lobby.

  
... _huh_.

  
He'd thought for sure that, since tonight was Halloween, some kind of celebration would be held in his former home.

  
But, then again, the building that he was now standing in had never been a celebration point when it came to holidays, so...

  
Why in the world had he thought he would come face-to-face with a plethora of drunken partyers instead of complete silence?

  
_That was weird_ , Bucky thought to himself and shaking his head, his mind refocused to his goal at hand: get to the elevator and get to Steve.

  
He approached the wall where the contraption stood...

  
And...

  
_"Good evening, Mr. Barnes!"_ a female voice suddenly called out behind him, making the poor man almost jump out of his skin.

  
Turning around, Bucky blinked a few times when he noticed his interlocutor:

  
A young woman, probably almost as old as he was, stood there in a completely red costume, almost as red as the fiery color of her hair, with a golden _"Natasha"_   tag attached to her lapel.

  
"Uhm...hello?" mumbled out Bucky, quite stunned to see someone recognize him from the get-go, even though he hadn't warned anyone about his earlier arrival and he for sure had never seen or heard about this particular woman before.

 

The red-head in front of him smiled and tilted the front of her cap as she said: "I'm Natasha, happy to serve you on this fine Halloween night!"

  
Finally realizing what the woman's get-up was all about, Bucky tilted his own head and asked as he pointed at the wall behind him: "Are you the...?"

  
"The elevator operator? Yes, yes I am!" she answered cheerily, reaching around her neck and dangled a rusted-looking key in front of the former soldier's eyes, who's eyebrows furrowed as he pondered:

  
"Huh...and whatever happened to..."

  
"Sparky? Oh, he wasn't feeling well, so I took over for the night. You know how it is, the older people get, the more frail their health are." Responded the supposed elevator operator.

  
She eagerly put the key inside its allotted slot and her hand was noticeably shaking when a _**ding!** _ echoed through the otherwise empty hallway and the elevator doors opened in front of them both.

  
"Are you alright?" Bucky couldn't help but ask as the pair embarked onto the machine...

  
"Oh, me? I'm fine! It's just that it's my first time driving _this_  particular elevator, since I usually work more uptown than around here, but don't worry, you're totally safe with me on-board!" Natasha reassured her costumer and, her smile returning once more when he nodded, she put her key once more inside the machine's wall as she asked:

  
"Now then, where do you need to go?"

  
**************

  
Steve got out of the apartment, another wave of coughs wrecking his entire body.

  
Gosh, if he'd thought the inside of his apartment was cold because of those damn unpaid heating bills, the hallways in this place were absolutely _glacial_ at night.

  
He rubbed his hands together and put one over his forehead...

  
Was he also running a fever on top of everything else?

  
He hoped he wouldn't have to go to the hospital, because since if he did, he wouldn't be there for Bucky's return.

 

And if there was one thing that he didn't wanna do, it was making his beloved worry about his well-being the first minute that he was back home.

  
_Maybe the owner downstairs still had some of that strong cough medicine_ , he thought as he wrapped his arms around his shivering self.

  
The medication would probably keep him away from the emergencies long enough so that Bucky would get a proper welcome back...

  
If he could find the damn elevator to get to said-downstairs first, that is.

  
He was about to close his eyes and lay his head against the wall, only for just a little bit, when a resounding **_ding!_** almost made him jump right out of his skin and seeing the elevator doors opened, Steve's mouth became agape when he found himself face-to face with...

  
_"Bucky?!"_

  
The man in question literally lit up when he saw his beloved and crying out: "Stevie!", the pair crashed together in a three-arms tight hug, sobbing in joy and kissing each other everywhere they could read.

  
Steve sniffed and pulling back from their embrace, he asked his beloved "But...But I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow?!"

  
Cupping his beloved's warm cheek with his one remaining hand, Bucky tenderly smiled as he responded: "I took an earlier flight, I was just too eager to see you. To see you and..."

  
"Finally do what we were meant to do for all this time?" Steve finished for him, resting his head's against the love of his life's.

  
Bucky could only nod and a single tear rolled down his battle-worn face as he whispered: "Yes, now let's get out of here. For I believe that there is a priest waiting for us just two blocks away."

  
A single tear also rolled down the smaller man of the two's face as he whispered back: "Yes, let's and then we can finally begin the rest of our lives together."

  
It was then that, fingers interlocked, the pair, along with the replacement operator entered the elevator...

  
And Natasha silently thanked the heavens for an oldies Halloween costume shop, three weeks worth of preparation and studying and a strong resolve in the face of the impossible, as she stepped out onto the lobby when the elevator doors finally opened and looking back, she saw, as a single tear rolled down her beaming face...

  
A completely empty, but also completely clean shaft.

 


End file.
